Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(41)

The mortar was cracking in the frame of the window. She pulled out a small chunk and rolled it between her fingers.

“Does your Grace make mistakes? Or are you always right?”

He breathed; it almost sounded like a laugh. “It’s not always exact. And it’s always changing. I’m still growing into it. My sense of the physical is pretty reliable, as long as I’m not in an enormous crowd. I know where people are and what they’re doing. But what they feel toward me – there’s never been a time when I thought someone was lying and they weren’t. Or a time when I thought someone intended to hit me and they didn’t. But there are times when I’m not sure – when I have a sense of something but I’m not sure. Other people’s feelings can be very… complicated, and difficult to understand.”

She hadn’t thought of that, that a person might be difficult to understand, even to a mind reader.

“I’m more sure of things now than I used to be,” he said. “When I was a child I was rarely sure. These enormous waves of energy and feeling and thought were always crashing into me, and most of the time I was drowning in them.

For one thing, it’s taken me a long time to learn to distinguish between thoughts that matter and thoughts that don’t.

Thoughts that are just thoughts, fleeting, and thoughts that carry some kind of relevant intent. I’ve gotten much better at that, but my Grace still gives me things I’ve no idea what to do with.”

It sounded ridiculous to her, thoroughly ridiculous. And she had thought her own Grace overwhelming. Alongside his, it seemed quite straightforward.

“It’s hard to get a handle on it sometimes,” he said, “my Grace.”

She turned sideways for a moment. “Did you say that because I thought it?”

“No. I said it because I thought it.”

She turned back to the window. “I thought it, too,” she said. “Or something like it.”

“Well,” he said. “I imagine it’s a feeling you would understand.”

She sighed again. There were things about this she could understand, though she didn’t want to. “How close do you have to be to someone, physically, for your Grace to sense them?”

“It differs. And it’s changed over time.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s someone I know well,” he said, “my range is broad. For strangers, I need to be closer. I knew when you neared the castle today; I knew when you burst into the courtyard and leaped out of your saddle, and I felt your anger strong and clear as you flew up to Raffin’s rooms. My range for you is… broader than most.”

It was darker outside now than it was in her dining room. She saw him, suddenly, in the reflection of the window.

He was leaning back against the table, as she had pictured him before. His face, his shoulders, his arms sagged.

Everything about him sagged. He was unhappy. He was looking down at his feet, but as she watched him he raised his eyes, and met hers in the glass. She felt the tears again, suddenly, and she grasped at something to say.

“Do you sense the presence of animals and plants? Rocks and dirt?”

“I’m leaving,” he said, “tomorrow.”

“Do you know when an animal is near?”

“Will you turn around,” he said, “so I can see you while we speak?”

“Can you read my mind more easily when I’m facing you?”

“No. I’d just like to see you, Katsa. That’s all.”

His voice was soft, and sorry. He was sorry about all of this, sorry for his Grace. His Grace that was not his fault and that would have driven her away had he told her of it at the beginning.

She turned to face him.

“I didn’t used to sense animals and plants or landscapes,” he said, “but lately that’s been changing. Sometimes I’ll get a fuzzy sense of something that isn’t human. If something moves, I might sense it. It’s erratic.”

Katsa watched his face.

“I’m going to Sunder,” he said.

Katsa folded her arms across her stomach and said nothing.

“When Murgon questioned me after your rescue, it became obvious to me the object you’d taken was my grandfather. It became just as obvious Murgon had been keeping him for someone else. But I couldn’t tell who, not without asking questions that would’ve given away what I knew.”

She listened vaguely. She was tired, overwhelmed by too many things in the present to focus on the details of the kidnapping.

“I’m beginning to think it’s something to do with Monsea,” he said. “We’ve ruled out the Middluns, Wester, Nander, Estill, Sunder – and you’ll remember, I’ve been to most of those courts. I know I was not lied to, except in Sunder.

Lienid is not responsible, I’m sure of it.”

She’d lost her fury, somewhere, as they’d talked. She didn’t feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place. She was sorry for everything that had changed now with Po.

Sorry to see it all go.

“Katsa,” he said. “I need you to listen to me.”

She blinked and worked her mind back to the words he had spoken.

“But King Leck of Monsea is a kind man,” she said. “He would have no reason.”